On the third Monday of each January, Americans honor the memory of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. King was a Baptist minister from the southern state of Alabama, and a leader in the fight against racial inequality in the United States. Rev. King died by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. On January 15, he would have celebrated his 95th birthday.
Rev. King lived in a time when racial discrimination was rife in many parts of the United States. For nearly a full century after the end of the Civil War, most of the African American population was subject to so-called Jim Crow laws that in effect denied them the rights that go with full citizenship.
Taking inspiration from the Christian Bible, as well as from Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. King organized and participated in non-violent mass-action boycotts, sit-ins, peaceful marches, and other acts of civil disobedience. Hoping to draw attention to the inherent unfairness of Jim Crow laws, African American activists sometimes deliberately, but peacefully and respectfully, broke laws aimed at segregating whites from non-whites. And although it was a long, tough fight, their efforts bore fruit. In 1964, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed segregation in public places, as well as employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin.
“Dr. Martin Luther King was born into a nation where segregation was a tragic fact of life,” said President Joe Biden. “He had every reason to believe, as others of the generation did, that history had already been written, that the division would be America’s destiny. But he rejected that outcome,” said President Biden.
“Often, when people hear about Dr. King, people think of his ministry and the movement, or most about the epic struggle for civil rights and voting rights. But we do well to remember that his mission was something even deeper. It was spiritual. It was moral,” said President Biden. “It’s when we see each other as neighbors and not enemies that progress and justice come ... Progress is never easy, but it’s always possible. And things do get better on our march toward a more perfect union.”
